In the production of chemical pulp of high brightness, wood chips are first cooked to separate the cellulose fibres. Part of the lignin holding the fibres together is thus degraded and modified, such that it can be removed by subsequent washing. However, in order to obtain sufficient brightness, more lignin has to be removed, together with brightness-impairing (chromophoric) groups. This is frequently effected by delignification with oxygen, followed by bleaching in several stages.
For environmental reasons, it has become increasingly common to treat chemical pulp with chlorine-free bleaching agents as early as in the first bleaching steps, thereby drastically reducing the discharges of chlorinated organic compounds detrimental to the environment. Ozone is a very suitable bleaching agent from an environmental point of view. Furthermore, ozone is very effective when attacking the lignin but also when attacking the cellulose chains in the pulp. Thus, the pulp obtained has an extremely high brightness with but a small charge of ozone, but the inadequate selectivity in the delignification brings about a pulp of insufficient strength.
It is known to use chlorine-free bleaching agents, such as hydrogen peroxide and ozone, as early as in the prebleaching. However, the delignification and the consumption of the bleaching agent become less effective than with chlorine-containing bleaching agents, unless the pulp is pretreated. Thus, an ozone treatment is disturbed by the presence in the pulp of ions of certain metals, such as Mn, Cu and Fe. These metal ions cause disintegration of the ozone and/or degradation products, which tend to considerably reduce the strength properties of the pulp, such as the viscosity. This can be counteracted by pretreating the pulp at a low pH by means of a so-called acid wash, e.g. according to Germgard et al, Svensk Papperstidning, 88(15), R127-132 (1985). The pulp may also be treated at a low pH directly in the first step of the bleaching sequence, by bleaching with chlorine-containing chemicals, such as chlorine dioxide, e.g. according to U.S. Pat. No. 4,959,124. Such treatment reduces the concentrations of all types of metal ions.